The day after New Year’s, the CEOs of the two biggest wireless carriers in America sent a very angry letter to Pete Buttigieg. The companies had been working for years to launch a new portion of their 5G networks, a launch that had been scheduled for December and then unexpectedly pushed back due to vague air safety concerns. Now, the Department of Transportation was asking for more time, just days before the scheduled launch.
“In addition to the tens of billions of dollars we paid to the U.S. Government for the spectrum and the additional billions of dollars we paid to the satellite companies to enable the December 2021 availability of the spectrum,” the CEOs wrote, “we have paid billions of dollars more to purchase the necessary equipment and lease space on towers. Thousands of our employees have worked non-stop for months to prepare our networks to utilize this spectrum.”
As of yesterday, the spectrum launch is back on — pushed first to January 5th, then two weeks later to January 19th — but it’s been an unusually rocky road for US wireless carriers, bouncing between regulators at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and increasingly vocal unions for pilots and flight attendants. At the heart of all of it is a nagging fear that the latest round of 5G spectrum will pose a threat to commercial airlines and their passengers. But it’s such a complicated issue that it’s best to unpack it one piece at a time.
What is actually getting delayed here? I already have 5G on my phone.
Carriers and airlines are fighting over a particular chunk of spectrum from 3.7 to roughly 4.0 GHz – primarily used by AT&T and Verizon, sometimes referred to as C-band. (T-Mobile is using a separate mid-band patch at 2.2GHz, so it is largely sitting this fight out.)
This isn’t all the 5G spectrum, but it’s some of the best parts. The most powerful thing about 5G is the ability to transmit huge volumes of data over these mid-band frequencies, and this spectrum is the main way AT&T and Verizon are planning to do it.
“There’s a reason they paid $65 billion for this. They don’t have sufficient mid-band spectrum without it.”
“There’s a reason they paid $65 billion for this spectrum,” says Public Knowledge’s Harold Feld, who wrote about the issue at length in November. “They don’t have sufficient mid-band spectrum without it.”
Crucially, we’re at the last step in a very long process. If you bought a 5G-capable phone, you already own a device that can send and receive on those wavelengths, and there are already cell towers that can manage those signals. All that’s left is to turn them on, at which point the C-band airwaves will get a whole lot busier.
So… why didn’t they switch them on?
Airlines are worried those busier C-band airwaves will interfere with their equipment. In particular, they’re worried about radar altimeters — a device that bounces radio waves off the ground to give extremely precise altitude readings. It’s a crucial device for landings, particularly in conditions with limited visibility, and relies on having an empty patch of spectrum to work in. Faulty altimeter readings can also trigger automated responses from autopilot systems, as in a 2009 Turkish Airlines crash that left nine dead.
As a result, the entire industry is deeply uncomfortable with anything that might interfere with altimeters. As an airline pilot’s association put it in a 2018 filing to the FCC, “the public interest would not be served if tens of thousands of existing aircraft worldwide were inadvertently no longer provided the safety protection enabled by radio altimetry equipment due to interference from adjacent bands.”
But they’ve tested this, right? Does it actually cause problems?
This is the 65-billion-dollar question! As one tech trade group is fond of pointing out, this spectrum has already been rolled out in 40 different countries without any resulting altimeter failures, although some of those countries are operating it at lower power levels. But the FCC has spent three years going back and forth with various airline groups on this question, and a lot of them are still worried.
It’s not clear how many faulty altimeters are out there or how they’ll respond to a flood of 5G traffic
The FCC has a number of measures in place to prevent interference. There’s a full 220 MHz of clearance between the spectrum used by the radio altimeters (which starts at 4,200 MHz) and the new 5G spectrum (which ends at 3,980 MHz). The FCC even carved an extra 20 MHz from the 5G holdings when this issue was raised in 2018 to give aircraft extra space. There are also several restrictions on how 5G towers should be configured near airports to avoid flooding the airwaves in areas where planes are landing. In a modern plane with a modern radar altimeter, it should be easy to avoid interference.
The problem is, not every aircraft has a modern radar altimeter. Both sides acknowledge that at least some altimeters are affected by signals from outside the intended spectrum bands. To be clear, this is a malfunction — but it’s a malfunction that wouldn’t have been relevant before C-band came online. As things stand now, it’s not clear how many faulty altimeters are out there or how they’ll respond to a flood of 5G traffic. And because even a single interference-related crash would be tragic, it’s hard for airlines to feel secure about the rollout.
For the FCC and wireless industry, the ideal solution would be for the FAA to launch some kind of industry-wide effort to find and replace faulty altimeters. In fact, they would have liked it to launch in 2019, when the rulemaking for the spectrum first began. But that didn’t happen, and it’s unlikely to happen in the next two weeks.
Why don’t carriers give airlines more time to test their equipment?
Verizon and AT&T are coming up against a deadline of their own. 5G-capable phones have been available in the US for two years now, and carriers are expecting a flood of new customers as holiday devices come online. Both networks have some 5G capacity already in place, but without the C-band spectrum, their networks are increasingly stretched thin. In February, AT&T plans to shut down its 3G network entirely as part of the transition to 5G. All that traffic has to go somewhere — and without new spectrum, the result will be spotty, inconsistent service. At the same time, T-Mobile is skating by without any of these problems and has been aggressively marketing its 5G network to draw away customers.
Another two weeks isn’t too big of a deal for the carriers, which is part of why they were so eager to accept the deal, but further delays could start to do serious damage to their business plans. With each passing month, the drag on the network gets a little more severe, and the damage from a $65 billion dead asset gets a little harder for shareholders to ignore.
“The thing the carriers were really worried about was, how long is this going to go on?” Feld says. “You have this combination of surging demand and concern that you won’t ever be able to use the spectrum.”
So what happens now?
One way or another, AT&T and Verizon are planning to switch on their networks on January 19th, and the airlines and pilots will be on high alert for the first sign of any interference. The FAA has promised to use the extra two weeks to craft an airworthiness directive for any planes that might be affected, which will stave off the most severe shutdowns or delays. Given the tight timeframe and mounting pressure, it’s very likely the best the agency can do.
But for observers like Feld, the most frustrating thing is how much time agencies have already wasted without addressing the issue. “This shouldn’t have been a problem. Since the FCC started this rulemaking in 2019, we’ve known this was coming. The steps that are necessary to address this are fairly straightforward,” he told me. “It’s unfathomable.”
By Karl Bode, Jan 3, 2022 | Original Muninetworks article here.
Over 230 communities have applied for National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Broadband Infrastructure Program grants. But community leaders increasingly say they’re facing costly, unnecessary challenges from incumbent broadband providers, who are exploiting unreliable U.S. broadband maps tooverstate existing coverageand defend the status quo.
The NTIA’s $288 million grant program – and the looming $42 billion broadband infrastructure investment plan – will help bring affordable broadband to the roughly 20-30 million Americans without broadband, and the 83 million Americans currently living under a broadband monopoly.
In Grafton County, New Hampshire, 39 municipalities are part of a growing list of communities exploring home-grown broadband alternatives. They represent a grassroots movement driven by frustration with market failure that accelerated during the Covid-19 crisis. In response they’ve bonded together to apply for a $26.2 million NTIA grant to improve the region’s substandard broadband.
A Little Something Called Competition
Grafton hopes to use the NTIA funding to provide a middle mile fiber network, making it easier for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to service each municipality and the county’s 90,000 residents. The network will be open access, inviting numerous ISPs to compete over the same shared infrastructure. Studies have repeatedly shown such open access models result in better, cheaper, faster service.
“The whole idea is that we want to facilitate competition,” Bristol town administrator Nik Coates shared in a recent phone interview. “I get at least an email a day from people contacting me about how bad their service is.” According to the FCC Form 477 data (which can dramatically overstate access), there are more than 5,300 people in the county completely unserved by wireline connections capable of speeds at 25/3 Megabits per second (Mbps). Many more residents lack access to 100/20 Mbps connections (see map below, or full size at the bottom of this story).
Threatened by the potential for a more competitive broadband market, Coates says incumbent ISPs like Comcast and Charter Spectrum have been bombarding the NTIA grant approval process with a series of dubious challenges, claiming that grant applicants are trying to duplicate existing service, making community alternatives and upgrades unnecessary.
But these claims lean heavily on extremely flawed FCC 477 data, which historically deems an entire census block “served” with broadband if just one home in the entire census block can gain access to broadband. As a result, U.S. broadband maps tend to be “grossly inaccurate,” according to looming FCC appointee and telecom policy expert Gigi Sohn.
ISPs have a long track record of opposing efforts to improve federal broadband mapping, wary that improvements would highlight the real-world impact of regional monopolization and limited competition. The falsely-optimistic picture painted by inaccurate maps has long been used to argue that no meaningful competition reform is necessary on the state or federal level.
Of the 4,000 census blocks covered by Grafton’s grant application, Coates said that incumbent ISPs challenged 3,000 of them, even those dominated by cemeteries. In the majority of the challenges, telecom giants overstated available speeds and existing coverage, he noted.
“My immediate response was that this was them telling us to go boil water,” Coates said. “Here you go, prove that you can do this in these three thousand census blocks. Have fun figuring it out.”
The federal government’s failure to develop accurate broadband mapping data has forced countless communities to take the matter into their own hands. Counties like Grafton have resorted to
conducting independent surveys,
crowdsourcing better data,
relying on third party speed test data
driving town to town to determine real-world availability and speeds.
Coates said Grafton counter-challenged all 3,000 contested census blocks by incumbent ISPs like Comcast and Charter, pointing to a recent county survey of 2,400 locals that found most homes in Grafton have Internet access that falls well below the FCC’s base definition of broadband: 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) downstream and 3 Mbps upstream.
“It clearly shows that people are not getting the speeds that you’re saying they’re getting, so you go prove otherwise,” Coates said.
An NTIA spokesperson told me that the agency uses a variety of different data sources to confirm broadband deployment accuracy, though communities say they haven’t been given a timeline as to when the agency will rule on changes.
“Information submitted by service providers is one factor in the evaluation of Broadband Infrastructure Program applications,” the NTIA said. “We are also coordinating with other federal agencies and using data from the FCC and our National Broadband Availability Map to help make determinations about where service is needed most. Our number one priority for this program is providing broadband service to as many unserved households and businesses as possible.”
Not An Isolated Incident
New Hampshire isn’t the only state where grant applications are seeing factually-dubious and time-consuming challenges from incumbent ISPs. Peggy Schaffer, executive director of Maine’s ConnectMaine initiative, said its grant applications have also been challenged by incumbent ISPs wielding inaccurate broadband availability data.
In Maine, community leaders applied for $28 million in NTIA grant money, but quickly found their requests bogged down by incumbent ISP challenges, almost 90 percent of which were based on broadband coverage claims Maine officials quickly debunked.
“We looked at 477 data, and several of our challenged areas the company that challenged them did not even file 477 data on,” Schaffer noted. “We looked for cable franchise agreements, and again, some of the areas challenged were for towns where the cable company did not have franchise agreements with, so did not serve them.”
Overall, Maine had 345 out of 1100 potential census blocks challenged by ISPs, only 40 which had any real validity, Schaffer said.
Unwilling to wait for the federal government to get its act together, Maine is one of several states that has developed their own more granular, crowdsourced broadband mapping systems, making it easier to identify the real scope and counters of the nation’s stubborn digital divide. It’s an advantage many communities navigating the NTIA process don’t have.
“Responding to this challenge was not an insignificant lift in ten days,” Schaffer said. “And we only had 345 blocks, NOT the 3000 that Grafton County had. For communities and areas that applied that did not have support of mapping, community planning, and time, this might have been a barrier to them responding adequately to the challenge.”
Many of the communities applying for the grants are already operating on tight budgets and limited resources. Many more are marginalized communities long stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide due to selective upgrades or policy apathy. Any additional burden in obtaining needed federal broadband funding can often prove a bridge too far.
By inundating the grant process with factually-dubious challenges, incumbent ISPs hope to exploit federal broadband mapping failures to bury both government regulators and local communities in paperwork.
It’s a notable challenge for the NTIA, an agency that not only hasn’t had a full time leader in more than two years, but has been tasked with overseeing both its existing grant programs while also building and coordinating an entirely new additional $42 billion state-by-state grant program as part of the recently passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
“The sin here is not NTIA,” Schaffer said. “They had to do a challenge process by statute. The original sin here is still the FCC maps—which despite everyone saying they suck—are still used as the standard. And the fact that companies can report stuff that is simply not true…to deny service to thousands of people who don’t have service to protect their imaginary footprint.”
Fortunately there are numerous broadband mapping reforms currently in the pipeline. That’s thanks in large part to the 2020 Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act, which doled out more than $98 million to the FCC to help craft more accurate broadband mapping methodologies.
But such efforts may take several more years and additional funding to implement. As such, they’re coming too late to ensure that the United States has an accurate picture of the problem it’s trying to fix now, with billions of dollars coming down the pipeline. That’s an advantage for monopolies with a vested interest in keeping the profitable status quo intact.
Maps and table of broadband available from Christine Parker, ILSR Data and Visualisation Specialist.
By Harry the Greek, Dec 29, 2021 | Original post here.
From Judge David Tatel, U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit:
In the 24-page opinion written by D.C. Federal Judge David Tatel, 6G has been approved for unlicensed devices like:
smartphones
laptops
tablets
routers
Except the court wants to hear concerns from radio and television networks, because the FCC ignored them, so the case remains open and the ruling could be reversed if the court rules that 6G signals interfere with television shows and radio broadcasts.
Stay tuned.
A court case is never over until the judge says its over.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during remarks on Havana syndrome in the Benjamin Franklin Room of the State Department in Washington on November 5, 2021.
A State Department officer who says he was struck by the strange constellation of symptoms now known as “Havana syndrome” in 2017 is suing Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department for disability discrimination, according to court filings. It is the first known suit filed against the US government by a victim of Havana syndrome and comes as the State Department continues to face sharp criticism from some lawmakers and victims over its handling of the incidents and care for affected diplomats.
Mark Lenzi, a member of the diplomatic security services, claims in the suit that he is a victim of a series of incidents beginning in 2017 in Guangzhou, China, and that the State Department retaliated against him for speaking up about his persistent symptoms.
Since the first set of cases were reported in Havana, Cuba, in 2016, intelligence investigators have struggled to understand what — or who — is causing now hundreds of spies, diplomats and service members to suffer vertigo, debilitating headaches and, at times, traumatic brain injury. One working theory inside the intelligence community is that a foreign adversary is using pulsed microwave radiation either to harass or spy on American personnel overseas, but officials caution they have collected no firm evidence to prove that theory and some outside experts have explicitly rejected it.
In response to a request for comment, a State Department spokesperson said the department does not comment on matters in litigation, and that “due to privacy concerns and for security reasons, we do not discuss specifics or Embassy operations. But we take each report we receive extremely seriously and are working to ensure that affected employees get the care and support they need.”
The State Department has pledged to solve the mystery of Havana syndrome and says it is prioritizing the safety of its officers. “The interagency is actively working to identify the cause of these incidents and whether they may be attributed to a foreign actor, and is focused on providing care for those affected,” the spokesperson added.
Lenzi, in his court filing, alleges that the State Department soft-pedaled efforts to determine what happened to him. According to Lenzi, he and his wife and children began experiencing “sudden and unexplained mental and physical symptoms, including headaches, lightheadedness, nausea, nosebleeds, sleeplessness, and memory loss” around November 2017.
In the suit, Lenzi claims that a security engineering officer (SEO) conducted a technical inspection of the apartment of another State Department official who was medically evacuated from the country for symptoms similar to Lenzi’s. But the engineering officer used microwave detection equipment that was “antiquated and out of date, was not working properly and was disfavored by SEOs who use this type of equipment frequently,” the lawsuit says.
The engineering officer “told Mr. Lenzi that this technical inspection of the medevac’d officer’s apartment was a ‘check-the-box’ exercise and stated that (the Diplomatic Security Deputy Assistant Secretary of State) had expressly requested that this inferior device be used for the search,” the suit claims.
Lenzi further claimed that he was told by the engineering officer that the deputy assistant secretary “did not want the report filed on the State Department’s classified file system (as is normal procedure) and wanted to limit access to the report to a select few.”
Lenzi claimed that he would be given an “urgent official counseling session” and informed that he was “‘being too emotional’ in his interactions'” with the regional security officer “about a security equipment issue.”
Lenzi eventually moved his family out of their Guangzhou apartment of his own accord and sent an unclassified email to colleagues “warning them about the potential danger to their health and safety,” according to the suit. That email prompted the State Department to order him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, Lenzi claims. The resulting report “questioned Mr. Lenzi’s judgment in sending the aforementioned email and stated that ‘leadership at post wants to make sure a serious mental illness has not been missed.'”
The lawsuit claims that Diplomatic Security leadership knew at the time that American officials in Guangzhou were experiencing unusual symptoms similar to those of Lenzi and his medevac’d neighbor. According to the suit, Lenzi and his wife both took the Havana Acquired Brain Injury Test (HABIT) in June 2018, to assess their conditions. Both demonstrated brain injury symptoms consistent with exposure to directed energy (the same symptoms as the injured US diplomats in Havana) and qualified for medical evacuation to the US, the suit says.
Back in the United States, Lenzi was officially diagnosed with an “acquired brain injury/concussion” at the University of Pennsylvania, the suit says. He claims that he continues to face retaliation and discrimination by the State Department.
Specifically, Lenzi alleges that he was treated differently from American employees who had similar symptoms in Havana in 2016. According to the suit, Lenzi claims that he “received less support from the State Department in pursuing treatment, and has had to jump through needless, time intensive, and burdensome administrative hurdles to try to receive the medical care he needs.” In particular, Lenzi claims that he was required to use sick leave to receive treatment, while officers injured in Cuba were permitted to use administrative leave.
Lenzi also claims that although he has received some disability accommodations, he has been placed in roles that are associated with salary tiers below his expertise level — even though, he claims, those accommodations would not have precluded him from taking an overseas posting more commensurate with his experience. The suit also alleges that “Mr. Lenzi would most likely have been promoted already if not for the Agency’s discrimination and retaliation against him.”
Lenzi has been public in expressing his frustrations with the State Department’s handling of the incidents, but other rank-and-file State Department staffers and diplomats also expressed frustration earlier this year, including what they said was a lack of information from leadership and a hands-off approach by Blinken.
Diplomats and intelligence sources who spoke to CNN at the time said they wanted basic information such as the number of people affected and locations of the incidents, especially since the department used to release that information publicly in news briefings about the incidents in Cuba and China. The diplomats were also left wondering what the department was doing to ensure that they and their families were not sent back into buildings or apartments where health incidents had been reported previously.
In response, State Department officials stressed they have been trying to strike the right balance: They want to share more details so that diplomats can make informed decisions, but they also do not want to hype the threat. Blinken met with victims for the first time in September, and in November announced that he had appointed two new diplomats to lead ongoing efforts to address the illnesses, which the US government calls “anomalous health incidents.”
“All of us in the US government, and especially we at the State Department, are intently focused on getting to the bottom of what and who is causing these incidents,” Blinken said in a November news conference introducing the newly appointed officials overseeing the department’s response
Before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Nonproliferation.
December 8, 2021 Hearing on “Biosecurity for the Future: Strengthening Deterrence and Detection”Repisitory Documents
Jaime M. Yassif, Ph.D., Testimony, which one can view and read below.
Jaime M. Yassif, Ph.D. Testimony
Chairman Bera, Ranking Member Chabot, and other members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to join today’s hearing to share my perspective on Biosecurity for the Future. My name is Dr. Jaime Yassif. I am a Senior Fellow for Global Biological Policy and Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan global security organization focused on reducing nuclear and biological threats imperiling humanity.
Over the past 21 months, the world has contended with the devastating impacts that a biological event can have on human health, economies, political stability, and security. The SARS-CoV-2 virus has infected more than 265 million people, killed more than five million, and caused trillions of dollars in economic losses. COVID-19 has revealed that national governments and the international community are woefully unprepared to respond to pandemics—underscoring our shared vulnerability to future catastrophic biological threats that could meet or exceed the severe consequences of the current pandemic.
To offer meaningful protection against global biological risks, the world needs a layered defense, comprised of effective measures for prevention, detection, and response. While we address all three of these critically important aspects in our work at NTI, I will focus my testimony today primarily on actions that national leaders and the international community should take with a view to preventing catastrophic biological events. Specifically, I will focus on three priority initiatives that NTI has been working to advance, which we view as critically important. NTI is working to:
Prevent the deliberate abuse or accidental misuse of bioscience and biotechnology by strengthening international biosecurity norms and developing innovative, practical tools to reduce risks throughout the research and development life cycle.
Develop a new Joint Assessment Mechanism to strengthen UN-system capabilities to investigate high-consequence biological events of unknown origin. The ability to rapidly discern the source of emerging pandemics is critical to mitigating their effects in real time and protecting against future risks—and it could help deter development and use of biological weapons.
Advocate for establishing a catalytic financing mechanism to fund biosecurity and pandemic preparedness capacity building in countries around the world. Sustainably financed systems for early detection and robust response can stop outbreaks at the source before they evolve into global pandemics and can help deter would-be perpetrators of bioweapons attacks.
Reducing Emerging Biological Risks Associated with Rapid Technology Advances
Bioscience and biotechnology advances are vital for fighting disease, protecting the environment, and promoting economic development—and they hold incredible promise. A prime example is the ability to read, write, and edit DNA and RNA—the underlying blueprint for all life on earth. These developments are part of a broader bioscience revolution, which also is accelerating design-build-test cycles for engineering biology. This includes increasingly sophisticated technologies for automation of high-throughput bioscience experiments, coupled with continued advances in AI-based approaches to this work.1 Bioscience is truly the revolution of the 21st century, and it holds incredible promise. However, these innovations can pose unique challenges—increasing the risks of accidental misuse or deliberate abuse with potentially catastrophic consequences.
These underlying risks are not new, but they have been exacerbated by the current pandemic, which has led to the proliferation of research into the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as well as its variants and other pathogens with pandemic potential—and new labs are being built around the world to house this work. While this research can have significant value in strengthening public health and pandemic-response capabilities, some of it poses dual-use risks. Moreover, in the wake of COVID-19, malicious actors may now recognize and act on the extraordinary disruptive potential of highly transmissible pathogens and other biological agents and use them to deliberately cause harm. This threat becomes increasingly pressing as the technical barriers to manipulating biological organisms continue to fall.
This has several implications for biosecurity and biological risks. First, these bioscience and biotechnology advances make it easier for a wider group of individuals to engineer novel pathogens or synthesize them from scratch. This could make it easier for a non-state actor to conduct a bioweapons attack with a sophisticated and deadly pathogen. Second, these advances could increase the risks of a laboratory accident with potentially catastrophic global consequences. There is a well-documented baseline rate of laboratory accidents, and these risks are exacerbated by research that involves modifying pathogens in ways that could lead to the creation of a more dangerous agent. Accidents associated with this type of research have the potential for significant and severe impacts—with broad implications for human, animal, and environmental health, as well as global safety, security and economic well-being.
To address these risks, we must safeguard the legitimate global bioscience research and development enterprise against laboratory accidents or exploitation and deliberate misuse by malicious actors.
Governments are key to safeguarding the life sciences, but they have struggled to keep pace with rapid technology advances. The 2021 Global Health Security Index—a project led by NTI in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security—will be released this morning, and it contains important data on the challenges countries have faced with national-level oversight of dual-use bioscience research.
International governance of dual-use bioscience research also is weak. There is no existing international entity—including the World Health Organization and the Biological Weapons Convention—dedicated as its primary mission to strengthening biosecurity and bioscience governance and reducing emerging biological risks associated with technology advances. This global governance gap leaves us all vulnerable.
To address this gap, NTI is working with international partners to develop the International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science (IBBIS). We envision that this new organization will work collaboratively to strengthen global biosecurity norms and develop innovative tools to uphold them. The underlying goal will be to safeguard science and reduce the risk of catastrophic events that could result from deliberate abuse or accidental misuse of bioscience and biotechnology. 2,3
In advancing this important initiative, we recognize that there is no single silver bullet for fully eliminating risks associated with dual-use bioscience research. To effectively guard against these risks, the world needs a layered defense—encompassing multiple interventions throughout the bioscience and biotechnology research and development life cycle: from funding, through execution, and on to publication or commercialization. In pursuit of this goal, IBBIS will develop practical, innovative tools that can concretely reduce risks at these different intervention points.
IBBIS will have a broadly defined mission so that it can take a comprehensive approach to this challenge. It will begin with a narrow focus on improving DNA synthesis screening practices internationally, with the flexibility to expand its remit over time. Such screening is critically important for preventing the building blocks of dangerous pathogens from falling into the hands of malicious actors. And yet, it is not legally required in any country—and only an estimated 80% of the global market share of DNA synthesis orders is screened on a voluntary basis. To drive this number closer to 100% and to improve screening practices around the world, NTI has been working with the World Economic Forum and an international consortium of experts to develop an international Common Mechanism for DNA synthesis screening.4 We envision that IBBIS will take responsibility for overseeing and managing this work. This is a useful starting point for IBBIS because it is clearly defined, impactful from a risk reduction perspective, and achievable.
NTI is working with the World Economic Forum and other key international partners to continue shaping the vision for IBBIS and to build international support for this initiative. We aspire to launch this new independent organization in 2022, and we are working energetically toward this goal.
IBBIS has the potential to significantly reduce catastrophic biological risks to the U.S. and to populations around the world. However, the success of this initiative will depend on diverse international support across regions and across multiple sectors. We encourage Congress, and specifically members of this Subcommittee, to support the goals of this initiative and help us build a broad coalition of global support for this entity and its critical mission.
Investigating High-Consequence Biological Events of Unknown Origin
Effective prevention of catastrophic biological risks also should encompass work to shape the intentions of powerful actors, who might otherwise seek to develop or use biological weapons to meet strategic or tactical objectives. An effective deterrence strategy rests in part on the capability of the international community to demonstrate to would-be developers or users of biological weapons that there is a reliable system for attribution of and accountability for such actions.
To do so, it will be important to bolster the capabilities of the United Nations’ system to investigate pandemic origins—whether naturally emerging, accidental or deliberate. This includes strengthening and investing significantly more resources in existing capabilities, such as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Mechanism, which has the authority to investigate alleged deliberate bioweapons use.
The international community must also fill gaps. There is a gap in international capabilities to investigate the source of biological events of unknown origin, which falls at the “seam” between existing mechanisms—including the outbreak investigation capabilities of the World Health Organization and the United Nations Secretary-General’s Mechanism. The ability to rapidly discern the source of emerging pandemics is critical to mitigating their effects in real time and protecting against future risks, and UN investigative capabilities must be strengthened for this purpose.
To meet this need, NTI is pursuing the establishment of a new Joint Assessment Mechanism for investigating high-consequence biological events of unknown origin. We originally recommended creating such a mechanism in the 2020 report, “Preventing Global Catastrophic Biological Risks,” which is based on lessons learned from a senior-level tabletop exercise hosted in partnership with the Munich Security Conference (MSC).5 To advance this goal, NTI convened a diverse group of international experts in July of this year to continue to explore this concept and solicit feedback from a wide range of international stakeholders.6 NTI is continuing to refine the Joint Assessment Mechanism concept by working with global experts to address key policy, institutional, technical, and operational considerations.
We envision that the Joint Assessment Mechanism would take an approach that is rapid, transparent, evidence based, and legitimate in the eyes of the international community. We also believe that this should be a 21st century mechanism, taking advantage of new tools, methods and technologies—such as bioinformatics, data science, and AI—to build a capability suited to today’s threat environment.
Establishing this mechanism and ensuring its effectiveness will require a broad coalition of international support. I hope Congress and this Subcommittee will support the establishment of this type of multilateral joint assessment mechanism—which will be important for mitigating pandemic effects in real time and for deterring future bioweapons development and use.
Health System Financing
Building strong systems for early detection and robust response is critical for stopping outbreaks from evolving into global pandemics. Importantly, having such capabilities in place can also help deter malicious actors from developing or using biological weapons. However, none of this can happen without resources. Failure to invest now risks a return to the same cycles of panic and neglect that led the world to be woefully unprepared for COVID-19.
As a national and global security priority, the U.S. Government needs to lead the way by dedicating substantially more resources to building the global systems required to effectively detect and respond to infectious disease outbreaks before they become global threats. That being said, we cannot do this alone. Countries around the world must also invest in their own pandemic preparedness capabilities.
As documented by the 2021 edition of the Global Health Security Index, most countries have not made dedicated financial investments in epidemic and pandemic preparedness. As a leading expert in the field framed this challenge at the joint NTI-MSC tabletop exercise conducted earlier this year, when it comes to financing pandemic preparedness, “we have been trying to fight a tsunami with a teaspoon.”7
The current short-sighted approach to pandemic preparedness financing is counterintuitive because it is, in fact, highly cost effective to invest in pandemic preparedness capabilities. I do not need to remind you that COVID-19 has led to trillions in economic losses and extensive damage to national and global economies. And yet, the international community can effectively guard against these risks with a global investment on the order of one to several hundred billion dollars. To achieve and sustain this level of investment, we need to redesign our collective approach to financing.
That’s why NTI is working with partners to advocate for a new, catalytic multilateral financing mechanism for pandemic preparedness in countries around the world.8 Our vision is that this funding mechanism should incentivize national governments to invest in their own preparedness over the long term. The mechanism should be managed within a country’s national budget to increase accountability, incentivize domestic resource mobilization, and promote a sustainable way to shift accounting lines away from donor balance sheets to national budgets. This mechanism should also be driven by countries and address their respective pandemic preparedness needs and gaps. Funds disbursed should prioritize preparedness activities, strengthening long-term national-level capacity and ensuring that preparedness remains a political and budget priority.
The U.S. has already signaled leadership in this area by championing the establishment of a new multilateral financing mechanism for pandemic preparedness at the Global COVID-19 Summit. Now, it must follow-through with significant funding to set the bar for other countries and partners and challenge them to step up and contribute as well. The United States should contribute at least $2 billion in seed funding to stand up this fund and work with partners—across governments, international institutions, the private sector, and civil society—to garner contributions and mobilize at least $10 billion annually. This $10 billion is the bare minimum required; other estimates point to much higher funding-level requirements. Even at higher levels, such funding would constitute a tiny fraction of the potentially catastrophic costs of inaction.
Conclusion
COVID-19 has served as a warning shot, highlighting and making real to citizens around the world our shared vulnerability to global pandemics. While national and global leaders are understandably focused on the current crisis, they cannot afford to neglect essential work to prevent and respond to future high-consequence biological events—which could match the impact of the current pandemic or cause damage that is much more severe.
We encourage Congress and this committee to take action on three key issues:
Support, domestically and internationally, the launch and sustainment of the International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science, toward its critical mission of safeguarding science and reducing the risk of catastrophic events that could result from deliberate abuse or accidental misuse of bioscience and biotechnology.
Urge colleagues in the international community to support the establishment of a new Joint Assessment Mechanism for investigating high-consequence biological events of unknown origin.
Champion the establishment of a new multilateral financing mechanism for pandemic preparedness, along with the provision of significant seed funding for this mechanism—which will be critical for strengthening rapid detection and response systems globally, and for deterring bioweapons development and use.
Chairman Bera, Ranking Member Chabot, and other members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify today. I look forward to answering your questions.
Adapted from an article by John Eggerton, Dec 7, 2021 | Original Multichannel News article here.
The U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit judges pressed the FCC on the commercial uses of RF Microwave Radiation-emitting antennas proliferating into residential zones. The Federal Communications Commission got some tough questioning from on the D.C. Circuit judges in defending its decision to amend its over-the-air receive device (OTARD) rule to remove a commercial use restriction. Oral arguments were delivered on Dec 7, 2021.
The FCC argues that the restriction, which prevented commercial antennas that both receive and transmit was outdated and impeded the build out of Densified 4G/ 5G wireless infrastructure.
The FCC was unanimous in its 2019 decision to expand the definition of user from customer to provider in the OTARD rule, which “prohibits laws, regulations, or restrictions imposed by State or local governments or private entities that impair the ability of antenna users to install, maintain, or use over-the-air reception devices”.
The FCC said the change was another one of its efforts to make it easier to deploy wireless broadband infrastructure and to help FCC rules keep pace with changing technology. The FCC argued, without evidence, that as cellular sites have gotten more numerous, there needs to be commercial hubs placed and constructed closer to customers in residential zones.
Advocacy group Children’s Health Defense (CHD) sued the FCC, arguing that easing the restriction on commercial operations of antennas to allow them to be erected in residential communities — and without prior notice — was potentially life-threatening to children and others. Many people can react biologically to RF microwave radiation at levels many thousands of times lower than the nonsensical FCC RF microwave exposure regulations, a limit that myopically fails for three reasons:
Evidence already in the FCC record proves that since 1996 many Americans have been biologically damaged by 24/7 exposure to RF Microwave radiation from wireless infrastructure antennas at power output levels that are many thousands of times lower than the arbitrary commercial RF microwave radiation exposure guideline selected by the FCC in 1996.
The “short cut” the FCC took in 1996 to select this industry-promulgated RF Microwave radiation exposure guideline myopically focuses only on the heating of tissue of living organisms and ignores every other scientifically-established adverse biological effect from pulsed, modulated, duty-cycled RF Microwave radiation, including neurological problems, dementia, reduced fertility, tinnitus (ringing in the ears), DNA damage, suppressed melatonin levels and immune functions and many more. The comprehensive list — that has been in the FCC’s record for decades — has been consistently ignored by the FCC. That is willful ignorance and negligence — plain and simple. That was a sticking point in the last lawsuit that the FCC lost to the Children’s Health Defense and Environmental Health Trust on Aug 13, 2021.
Unbelievably, the FCC even left out the “time of exposure” parameter from the RF microwave radiation exposure guideline it selected in 1996. The FCC RF Microwave radiation regulation essentially says that people and all living organisms can receive an unlimited total amount of RF microwave radiation over time, as long as the RF Microwave radiation (the poison) is delivered at an acceptable rate. The “R” in SAR stands for Rate; power density is based on Watts (also a rate) and not on Joules (Watts x time). Clearly, the established scientific evidence (tens of thousands of industry-independent studies since the 1920s) proves that the FCC could and should have based its RF Microwave radiation exposure guideline on Specific Absorption (SA) and NOT on Specific Absorption Rate (SAR). Choosing SAR was essentially a dirty trick that allowed dangerous wireless infrastructure to proliferate into communities without the speed limits, seatbelts and airbags that this industry needs in order to safely operate such antennas. The Communications Act gets it right in Title 47 US Code, §324:
In all circumstances . . . all radio . . . shall use the minimum amount of power necessary to carry out the communication desired.
(June 19, 1934, ch. 652, title III, § 324, 48 Stat. 1091.)
W. Scott McCollough, CHD’s attorney told the court:
“The Communications Act Does Not Grant the Commission the Power to Issue a License to Kill.”
The CHD argued that the change allows for more and more powerful antennas that pose a new health disaster to communities and that the communities cannot prevent through restrictive covenants.
“All of that protection goes away,” McCollough told the court.
The FCC argues that the same RF limits remain in place, as do other restrictions beyond the commercial use restriction that was removed. The judges pressed the FCC attorney on the fact that the antennas could now proliferate without homeowners knowing they were being constructed, since there was no requirement for community notification.
The FCC’s attorney conceded the change would mean lots more antennas because the old rule meant that antennas could not be primarily used as a hub, and now they could be. He said one of the reasons for the change was that as technology has evolved, antennas have become multipurpose devices much in the same way that a computer is now used for word processing, gaming or to watch video. He said the antennas can be used to receive, transmit and relay, so the old restriction was obsolete and “didn’t make sense.”
He pointed out that the amendment retained size restrictions on the antenna — no more than 12 feet above the roof line — but no effective power restrictions. The hub antennas are dual purpose — to be used by customer to receive service, and as a commercial relay service.
18 projects in tribal communities, counties and cities across the state mark first step in creating open-access middle-mile network to provide missing broadband infrastructure
Part of state’s $6 billion investment to expand broadband infrastructure and enhance internet access for unserved and underserved communities
SACRAMENTO – Advancing California’s commitment to bridge the digital divide, Governor Gavin Newsom today announced that the state has identified 18 projects to begin work on an open-access middle-mile network that will provide missing infrastructure paths to bring broadband to all our communities.
As part of the historic $6 billion broadband investment advanced in partnership with legislative leaders earlier this year, the initial project locations are based on known unserved and underserved areas across the state. The projects will connect to the core of the global internet and interconnect to last-mile infrastructure, which is the final leg that provides internet service to a customer.
“California is committed to taking on the challenges laid bare by the pandemic, including the digital divide holding back too many communities across the state,” said Governor Newsom. “These projects are the first step to delivering on our historic investment that will ensure all Californians have access to high-quality broadband internet, while also creating new jobs to support our nation-leading economic recovery.”
The initial 18 projects represent a range of geographic locations and technical approaches. Projects are being initiated in the following tribal communities, counties and cities: Alpine County; Amador County; Calaveras County; Central Coast; Coachella Valley; Colusa Area; Inyo County; Kern County; Kern/San Luis Obispo Area; Lake County Area; Los Angeles and South Los Angeles; Oakland; Orange County; Plumas Area; Riverside/San Diego Area; San Bernardino County; Siskiyou Area; and West Fresno.
A map and additional information on the initial projects can be found here.
“A reliable broadband connection makes the difference between having access to full-service health care, education and employment or sometimes going without,” said State Chief Information Officer Amy Tong. “Through a historic partnership between our Governor, the Legislature, state agencies and a third-party administrator, we are taking immediate action to improve connectivity for Californians in the northern, central and southern parts of the state.”
Evaluation of project areas included consideration of public comments, prioritization of unserved or underserved areas of the state, and inclusion of tribal communities, cities and counties. An unserved or underserved area has households that do not reliably have download speeds of at least 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) and upload of at least 3 Mbps.
State partners implementing the middle-mile initiative include the California Department of Technology, California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and Caltrans. GoldenStateNet was selected as the Third-Party Administrator (TPA) to manage the development, acquisition, construction, maintenance and operation of the statewide open-access middle-mile broadband network. As the TPA, GoldenStateNet will partner with key stakeholder groups across the state to investigate the best technical, financial and operational models to meet the needs of the project sites.
“Each entity brings a unique perspective and set of skills to the initiative, and we are beginning these initial projects within only three months of the first Middle Mile Advisory Committee Meeting. This is an extraordinary commitment to deliver service throughout the state,” said Gayle Miller, Chief Deputy Director of the Department of Finance and member of the Middle-Mile Advisory Committee.
“These initial routes have been identified to accelerate projects in areas of the state that are unserved because of the lack of open middle mile infrastructure to serve them. We are accelerating the selection of a diverse set of routes — those that are ready to build and those that are not ready to build. This allows the state to partner with locals on these diverse projects and learn by doing, as we concurrently work to finalize all the needed routes in the State. There are many more communities like those in Phase I that will be included in the final map,” said Martha Guzman Aceves, Commissioner at the CPUC.
“Equity remains our highest purpose in expanding the open-access middle-mile network. These initial sites are only the beginning, and I look forward to the tangible improvements this work will deliver to residents of our state,” said Toks Omishakin, Director of Caltrans.
“Core to our success will be the deep partnerships we’ve built with a diverse set of community organizations and last mile providers. Through many years of engagement with metropolitan planning organizations, CPUC-supported broadband consortia, Tribal organizations, community-based broadband advocacy groups, and organizations like the Rural County Representatives of California, the NAACP, and the California Emerging Technology Fund, we are now ready to take this historic step towards broadband equity for California,” said Louis Fox, Founder and Chair of GoldenStateNet, the state’s third-party administrator.
Middle-Mile Broadband Initiative Initial Projects
Siskiyou Area: Siskiyou County, State Route 3 communities from Yreka to Callahan
Plumas Area: Tehama, Lassen and Plumas counties from Red Bluff to Johnstonville along Hwy 36 and 89
Lake County Area: Lake and Mendocino counties, including Laughlin, Upper Lake, Robinson Rancheria, and Kelseyville
Colusa Area: Colusa County including Colusa, Williams and Arbuckle
Alpine County: Alpine County, Hwy 88 communities from Kirkwood to Mesa Vista
Amador County: Hwy 88 communities from Jackson Valley to Sutter Hill and Jackson
Calaveras County: Hwy 4 including Copperopolis and La Honda Park
Oakland: Oakland Flats Neighborhoods
Central Coast: Southern Santa Clara Valley to Hollister and Santa Cruz to Los Gatos
West Fresno: Fresno County, including South Dos Palos, Kerman, Mendota, Firebaugh, Tranquility and San Joaquin
Inyo County: Hwy 190 including Death Valley Junction and Greenwater
Kern County: Kern Canyon and Hwy 178 from Bakersfield to Lake Isabella and Weldon
Kern/San Luis Obispo Area: Kern, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, Taft to New Cuyama along Hwy 166 and 33
San Bernardino County: Hwy 247, High Desert, Barstow to Thorn
Los Angeles and South Los Angeles: South Los Angeles communities including South Gate, Lynwood,Paramount, Bell Flower, Compton and Lakewood
Orange County: Inland Orange County communities including Buena Park, Orange, Fullerton, Garden Grove and Westminster
Coachella Valley: Riverside County, Palm Springs to Indio and Coachella
Riverside/San Diego Area: San Diego and Riverside counties including the Cahuilla Reservation, Julian and Santee
Wireless carriers postpone planned Dec. 5 launch of new spectrum to address interference with cockpit safety systems
By Andrew Tangel and Drew Fitzgerald Nov 4, 2021 | Original Wall Street Journal article here.
An AT&T cell tower in Detroit; the telecom company has delayed its 5G deployment until Jan. 5. Photo: Jim West/Zuma Press
Two U.S. telecom companies agreed to delay their planned Dec. 5 rollout of a new 5G frequency band so they can work with the Federal Aviation Administration to address problems with interference with key cockpit safety systems.
AT&T Inc. T -1.51% said it agreed to delay its planned 5G deployment until Jan. 5 at the request of the U.S. Transportation Department, which oversees the FAA. Verizon Communications Inc. VZ -2.06% also agreed to postpone its launch of the new 5G wireless spectrum by about a month, people familiar with the matter said.
The FAA had been planning to issue official mandates as soon as this week that would limit pilots’ use of certain automated cockpit systems such as those that help planes land in poor weather, according to government and industry officials familiar with the planned orders. Those limits would aim to avoid interference from wireless towers on the ground transmitting new 5G signals.
Such limits could result in disruptions to passenger and cargo flights in 46 of the country’s largest metropolitan areas where the towers are located, aviation industry officials have said. Telecom industry officials have disputed safety problems, saying that available evidence doesn’t support the conclusion that the proposed 5G signals will interfere with flight equipment. Cellphone carriers in some other countries already use the wireless frequencies in question.
The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecom regulations, issued a statement with the FAA later Thursday confirming the voluntary pause.
The federal agencies said, naming both carriers:
“Aviation safety and technology leadership are national priorities, and with today’s announcement these companies have demonstrated their commitment to both,”
The agencies said they would continue working closely together to ensure the U.S. keeps pace with the rest of the world regarding the latest communications technologies, without undue delay.
At issue is a band of radio frequencies measured between 3.7 and 4.2 gigahertz, known as the C-band. The spectrum is considered highly suitable for 5G networks and already serves cellphone service in other countries. The technology, short for fifth-generation wireless, offers internet speeds much faster than today’s 4G service.
AT&T and Verizon spent tens of billions of dollars to buy the licenses for the 5G-friendly airwaves, with billions more reserved to compensate the band’s previous satellite users and install new equipment. The two carriers and rival T-Mobile US Inc. also won licenses for C-band spectrum that would be activated in late 2023. Only a portion of the band was scheduled for cellular use in December.
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Cockpit safety systems are commonplace to help planes land in poor weather and prevent crashes. Photo: LM Otero/Associated Press
The gradual pace of 5G infrastructure upgrades means AT&T and Verizon’s one-month delay isn’t likely to significantly alter their bottom lines, according to industry executives. But a longer pause could pressure the carriers.
Verizon is counting on C-band frequencies to address the mounting demands from its customers’ appetite for app downloads, games and streaming video.
Aviation industry groups have been warning federal officials about what they believe are safety problems created by the new 5G service and potential economic fallout, according to people familiar with the matter.
A presentation by a coalition of aviation groups to White House officials was expected this week to warn that the potential FAA restrictions could result in airports or even regions being shut down as passengers and shippers experience flight cancellations, delays and diversions.
The FAA had been expected to issue official mandates, known as airworthiness directives, that would restrict flights in U.S. airspace that require gauges known as radio altimeters that measure the distance between aircraft and the ground, according to a recent draft of a directive viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Some airplane equipment operates in nearby frequencies, between 4.2 and 4.4 GHz, raising the possibility of interference, according to aviation industry analysis. The FCC reviewed various industry studies about the safety matters and said in its March 2020 order that “well-designed equipment should not ordinarily receive any significant interference (let alone harmful interference).”
The commission later issued new licenses that allowed wireless companies to start operating in parts of the C-band on Dec. 5 of this year, in addition to other frequencies already in use for 5G.
The FAA and FCC have been tussling over the issue for months, though the plan to use the spectrum for cellular networks goes back several years. The FAA has sought specific data about 5G towers’ locations, power and angles to determine whether they could interfere with planes’ glide paths on final approach.
According to the FAA directive draft:
“At this time, the FAA has no way of determining which airports or areas within the U.S. have or will have 5G base stations or other devices that could provide interference with airplane systems . . . such interference could lead to loss of continued safe flight and landing.”
Earlier this week the FAA issued a special bulletin to pilots, airlines and aerospace manufacturers warning of the problems with 5G interference.
The FCC set its rules for use of the spectrum in early 2020 after reviewing the impacts on aviation, paving the way for Verizon and others to roll out service at the end of this year.
By Eva Fu Oct 27, 2021 | Original Epoch Times article here.
A China Telecom stand displaying 5G technology during the Mobile World Conference in Shanghai on June 27, 2018. (AFP/Getty Images)
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Oct. 26 voted unanimously to bar a leading Chinese state-owned telecommunication firm’s U.S. arm from operating in the country. China Telecom Americas, a subsidiary of China Telecom, now has 60 days to discontinue services after having operated in the United States for two decades.
The FCC voted 4-0 to terminate China Telecom America’s license to provide domestic and international services within the United States. The regulator said the firm “is subject to exploitation, influence, and control by the Chinese government” and is “highly likely” to comply with Beijing’s orders.
The decision concluded more than a year of U.S. scrutiny into the Chinese telecom provider, which began last April during the Trump era when the Department of Justice and other federal agencies called for the FCC to bar China Telecom’s U.S. operations.
The Justice Department at the time found that China Telecom had made inaccurate statements about where the company stored its U.S. records, which raised questions about who had access to those records. The department also said the firm had made inaccurate public statements about the company’s cybersecurity practices, drawing concerns about its compliance with U.S. cybersecurity and privacy laws.
Signage is seen at the headquarters of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, on Aug. 29, 2020. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters)
In March, the FCC began efforts to revoke authorization for three other state-controlled Chinese telecommunication firms, including China Unicom Americas, Pacific Networks, and its wholly-owned subsidiary ComNet, saying the companies “have failed at this stage to dispel serious concerns” about their U.S. authorizations.
The FCC on Tuesday highlighted China Telecom’s ownership by the state, which it said would give Beijing authorities opportunities to “access, store, disrupt, and/or misroute U.S. communications, which in turn allow them to engage in espionage and other harmful activities against the United States.”
China Telecom Americas, the agency said, had shown “a lack of candor, trustworthiness, and reliability that erodes the baseline level of trust” in its conduct towards the commission and other U.S. agencies. The regulator also accused China Telecom Americas of violating two of five terms in a 2007 letter of assurance given to the U.S. government, which it needed to comply with to continue operating in the country.
The Epoch Times has reached out to China Telecom but did not receive a response by press time. Following the vote, the agency’s acting chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel described the action.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said he was pleased to have wrapped up the case but signaled that more needs to be done in a Tuesday statement.
“While today’s vote is an important step forward, the FCC must remain vigilant to the threats posed by the Communist Party of China and those who would do its bidding. There’s bipartisan support to address security concerns coming from China.”
Last week, the House passed a legislation led by Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.) banning FCC from reviewing or giving out equipment licenses to Chinese state-linked telecom companies deemed a national security threat.
Carr, who welcomed the bill’s passage, said the FCC needs to expand on its banned list to cover more firms that could constitute a national security risk. He had targeted DJI, a Shenzhen-based drone maker, saying “we do not need a Huawei on wings.”
The FCC in March declared five Chinese companies, including Chinese telecom giant Huawei, as posing a threat to national security. It has also set a start date for U.S. telecom carriers to “rip and replace” equipment manufactured by Huawei in late September.
By Makena Kelly, Oct 26, 2021 | Original The Verge article here.
. . . and he appoints progressive Gigi Sohn as the third Democratic commissioner.
President Joe Biden named acting Federal Communications Commissioner Chair Jessica Rosenworcel to officially head the agency on Tuesday, propping her up as the administration’s leader to tackle broadband expansion and net neutrality. Biden also nominated progressive advocate Gigi Sohn as the third Democrat for the bench.
The decision comes late into Biden’s term, beating out both former presidents Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon who nominated their FCC chairs well into September of their first years. If confirmed by the Senate before December, the FCC’s 2-2 deadlock would end and provide Democrats with a majority to push forward Biden’s telecom agenda. But it’s unclear if senators plan to move on Rosenworcel and Sohn’s confirmations before the end of the year.
Without a majority, current Democratic commissioners Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks have their hands tied when it comes to implementing Biden’s agenda. In July, Biden signed an executive order urging the FCC to restore Obama-era net neutrality rules and to take up other measures to promote broadband competition, including requiring companies to provide transparency into pricing.
Both Rosenworcel and Sohn broadly support the reinstitution of net neutrality. Sohn, who founded the left-leaning tech non-profit Public Knowledge, previously advised former Chair Tom Wheeler during the initial net neutrality fight. At a May Verge event, Sohn suggested that the FCC regulate broadband even further under new net neutrality rules, urging the agency to enforce new pricing principles and make it easier for states and localities to build out their own broadband networks to compete with larger providers.
Rosenworcel and Sohn have butt heads before on certain broadband and cable policy measures. In one instance, Rosenworcel cast a tie-breaking vote to shut down an Obama-era attempt to make the cable set-top box marketplace more competitive. Sohn was one of the primary backers of this policy initiative.
Over the last year, numerous lawmakers and civil society organizations have led letters and campaigns supporting both Rosenworcel and Sohn to head the agency. In July, Fierce Wireless reported that Sohn was initially in the running to lead the agency, but her nomination was later pulled after reportedly being met with intense Senate opposition. In September, over two dozen senators penned a letter to Biden calling on him to appoint Rosenworcel as permanent chair. The letter was signed primarily by Democrats, but notably, more progressive senators, like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ed Markey (D-MA), were not included.
Sohn’s nomination to be commissioner is still a welcome gesture to progressives who have seen significant wins at ancillary agencies like the Federal Trade Commission over the last year. Biden previously appointed tech antitrust pioneer Lina Khan to lead the FTC and hired Tim Wu, a net neutrality and tech antitrust advocate, as a top economic adviser in the White House.
As Rosenworcel and Sohn’s nominations progress, Republicans will likely use future confirmation hearings to cast doubt on the administration’s plans to reimplement net neutrality. Since the Trump FCC, under Chairman Ajit Pai’s leadership, rolled back the rules in 2017, conservatives have argued that rulemaking never led to any nightmare scenarios previously predicted by Democrats and progressives. These include ISPs like AT&T and Verizon blocking certain lanes of traffic for consumers.
